


On the Payment of Debts

by Repeatinglitanies



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Hints of abuse, Mention Of Adultery, Moral Ambiguity, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:00:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27281587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Repeatinglitanies/pseuds/Repeatinglitanies
Summary: Fiveya Week Day 7 Prompt: Free ChoiceVanya didn’t like to have to owe anyone anything. But life seems to like putting her in uncomfortable situations.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 12
Kudos: 68
Collections: fiveya week (round 2)





	On the Payment of Debts

He left a tip on the table again. Vanya suppressed an inward sigh upon discovering it while cleaning up the vacated table. She had told the green-eyed customer who had become a patron for nearing six months now that the restaurant discouraged leaving tips for the servers.

A service charge had already been included in his bill. So he need not have bothered.

She would need to inform the manager again, who would then have to keep it in a lockbox only to pass it back to her for Vanya to then return to the customer. Neither the manager nor the other servers quite dared to approach that particular customer, much more ask him to cease leaving Vanya tips. 

Which would have been amusing considering that their restaurant catered exclusively to customers who made their money from less than legal means. One would think the staff was used to dealing with dangerous people.

Not that any of the staff knew exactly what each client did. It was simply unwise to know too much about the patrons. Downright fatal, even. The only reason most of the servers even took this job was because of the two pronged incentive of desperation and a higher than usual wage. The restaurant did a thorough background check, ensuring that its employees needed the job enough to keep its secrets and follow its rules.

And Vanya sorely needed the money. Enough to pay for a new identity and a new life away from this city. So that no one would ever catch her should they come looking for her. So that she would never need to be indebted to anyone ever again.

Growing up in poverty meant learning that your very existence was dependent on another person’s goodwill. Though from her experience, the term goodwill was more of a misnomer. 

More often than not, people only treated Vanya with kindness and decency when they needed something from her. And in her naïveté, that lifelong lesson was only hammered home recently.

Vanya had been downright foolish to believe that there were truly selfless people out there who would actually care about her. The young girl she had once been had hoped to find happiness and belonging, thinking that if she tried and looked hard enough, she would have friends, maybe even a family of her own.

But every time she thought she had found connection and belonging, she only ended up worse off than she was before. If only she had learned earlier that betrayal was only a matter of time, an inevitability and a foregone conclusion. 

When she had gotten out of the foster system, she had accepted Harold’s kindness. He opened his house to her, said that she could stay for as long as she needed in exchange for doing household chores. Vanya foolishly agreed, only to find out that part of those chores included having sex with him and anyone he felt like selling her to.

When she managed to escape to a shelter, Vanya had thought she was safe. She thought she had even found love with Sissy, who was a volunteer there. But then Vanya found out that Sissy was married. And would never leave her husband for Vanya. While Vanya couldn’t totally blame Sissy (Vanya was penniless and homeless), she also couldn’t help but feel used. To Sissy, Vanya was a welcome distraction from her boring life as a housewife. Sissy’s love came at a price Vanya wasn’t willing to pay. The worst part was that a part of her wanted to remain with Sissy even if Vanya was treated more akin to an ugly, disabled dog in an animal shelter, visited and cared for by volunteers, maybe even given attention. But never the likeliest candidate for a forever home.

Vanya left as soon as she realized that. She never went back to the shelter again. Last she heard, Sissy was looking for her. But she didn’t want to see Sissy or hear her excuses.

The city was full of awful memories Vanya wanted to forget. After Harold, after Sissy, she resolved to leave it. But to do that without them finding or coming after her, she needed money.

So as tempting as pocketing the green-eyed patron’s offering was, Vanya knew better than to actually give in. She knew the strings attached to taking his “gift.” She knew it since the day he came into the restaurant and locked eyes with her. She knew it in the way his eyes followed her when she walked across the room or when she neared or even passed his table. She knew it in the way he pointedly studied the menu even though he ordered the same thing every time. Or how he would keep his eyes on her even when he was with one of his associates. 

It was a good thing this regular customer kept things in the restaurant. 

Truth be told, Mr F. Hargreeves (Vanya wasn’t sure if that truly was his name but it was the name embossed on his credit card) was far from the first restaurant patron to seem fascinated with her. But unlike him, they were not subtle about it, propositioning her as she served them their wine or their appetisers as if they could not tell the difference between a waitress or a prostitute. 

Before working at the restaurant, it would have scared her. But becoming its employee offered her some form of protection. It seemed that the owner (who only the manager has direct contact with) had enough clout to obtain a sort of agreement from all its patrons that there would be no violence or bloodshed in his (or her or their) establishment. With that came the unspoken rule that restaurant employees were strictly off-limits.

The patrons were free to propose a barter in exchange for an employee’s favours outside of the establishment’s working hours. But it had to be voluntary on the part of the restaurant employee. 

Vanya used to be highly suspicious of such a rule that seemed so magnanimous and considerate of its employees. But then again, the manager explained that loyal and discrete staff (ones like Vanya who had a certain measure of attractiveness, weren’t taking highly addictive substances, had no previous criminal record, unlikely to accrue gambling debts and had no friends or family to distract her from fulfilling her duties) were hard to find. 

The manager had made it pretty clear that the job demanded to be first priority in the employee’s life. That way, only sheer misfortune or calamity would keep anyone from clocking in for work.

For all intents and purposes, the restaurant was akin to a sacred place. Anyone who even attempted to subvert its rules and codes of behaviour were banished. 

At first, Vanya had assumed it simply meant being banned from the establishment. But she had started hearing rumours from the other servers that the restaurant had a more permanent and irreversible state in mind for the rule-breakers.

So for the most part, Vanya felt safe, or as safe as she could be, from the patrons. Despite earlier misgivings, she was fairly certain none of them would go out of their way to harm her. And that on pain of banishment (whatever that truly meant), they would not harass her if she refused them.

But then came Mr F. Hargreeves. The green-eyed patron who barely spoke a word to her and yet left her generous tips, despite repeated reminders to stop. The man that even the restaurant’s normally unflappable manager seemed to fear above all else.

He had never outright propositioned her. With the amount of power he had and the fear he seemed to inspire in all the other patrons and the manager himself, Vanya wouldn’t totally be surprised if he one day cornered her in a dark, dingy alley to get her to do whatever he wanted without fear of the restaurant’s retribution.

Sometimes, Vanya wondered if Mr Hargreeves simply pitied her. Or if on a whim, he simply decided to leave money just to see what she would do, like some sort of deranged social experiment. But with money instead of marshmallows.

Her younger self would have believed the more innocent-seeming explanations. But Vanya was no longer a child. She knew better than to believe in people who aided others for free. Because the truth was that nothing was for free. The moment you accepted the seemingly innocuous gifts, your “benefactor” would automatically pull out the mental (and sometimes physical) ledger and record it as something you owed and needed to pay off.

That was why she would never accept anyone’s help without paying them back in return, the sooner the better. Or accept gestures of goodwill if she never asked for it.

If someone paid for her meal, Vanya would immediately check the bill just to be sure she repaid its exact value. If someone was foolish enough to give her a gift, she would either not accept it or find a way to sneak the gift back into the giver’s bag.

She wanted to think that Mr Hargreeves scared her simply because of how others feared him. And how she sensed that the restaurant’s protection would be ineffective if he seriously thought of harming her.

But the truth was that the only reason she knew he watched her was because she was watching him right back. If he ever asked her to spend a night with him, Vanya didn’t think she could refuse. Not solely out of fear.

She held no illusion that he was some sort of hitman with a heart of gold, who only wanted what was best for her. Vanya was sure he was like everyone else. And the appearance of kindness in the form of tips was nothing more than a down payment for what he thinks she could do for him.

Maybe if she had a high IQ or some special skill, Vanya could fool herself. But she was simply a nobody with no extraordinary talent to speak of. Which meant that Mr Hargreeves only wanted one thing from her.

The only question was if he’d act on it. And if Vanya would even put up a fight once he did.

In the end, Mr Hargreeves never had to proposition her. And yet, things certainly played out favourably for him.

As unconventional working in what basically amounted to an underworld restaurant was, it took the lead of most legal entities in that it paid at the end of the month, every month. 

So Vanya shouldn’t have been surprised when someone made a safe bet by attempting to mug her on the 31st of October. Vanya hadn’t used her old savings account since the day she left Harold. And she wasn’t inclined to open a new one. And the restaurant obliged by paying her in cash.

She had been making her way across the street to get to the only decent room she could rent with a landlord that didn’t bother with trifles such as a valid ID as long as the tenant paid on time. And Vanya always did. 

Perhaps, she had taken the relative safety of the restaurant for granted. That must be why she began to forget its limitations. Or perhaps she had been focusing too much on the danger she could see coming (Harold was still looking for her. And Mr Hargreeves was still a regular customer) that she forgot how danger could come at random. Despite her precautions and preparations, she couldn’t fully repel or avoid being on the receiving end of someone’s anger, desperation, perversion or malice.

She really shouldn’t have been in such a state of disbelief when a mugger pointed a switchblade at her, demanding that she hand over her bag. Had Vanya been wise, she would have thrown it as far away from her as possible or simply just thrown it at the thief’s face while she took the opportunity to run. 

But Vanya earned that money. She needed it to pay her bills and save up enough to get out of the city. She wasn’t going to let anyone steal it from her.

So a tug of war ensued until the thief remembered that it was he who had the advantage. 

In the relative comfort of a hospital bed, Vanya would remember the searing pain of the first stab. After that, all she remembered was the feel of the cold, hard ground. And the blurry vision of the thief running away with her bag, only to stop dead in his tracks. 

At the time, she had thought that perhaps there really was a personification of Death. And that it had come for both her and the mugger. Death certainly didn’t waste time sending her attacker on his way to the other side with a quick snap of the neck. And then Death seemed to be rushing towards her. 

The last thing she saw before she totally blacked out was a pair of panicked green eyes staring straight at her.

When Vanya woke up, she thought she must have been dreaming. Vanya was in a fancy hotel suite. Or at least, that was what she thought until she saw the monitors and the IV drip. 

She was in a hospital. A very expensive hospital judging by the decor and the lack of other patients sharing the room.

A nurse later explained that she had just woken up from surgery and would have died if she hadn’t been rushed to the hospital. Though, in Vanya’s opinion, it would be more accurate to just call it a medical facility rather than a hospital. People like Vanya don’t end up in nice rooms like this one and they don’t get this much care and attention from nurses who would normally have other patients to attend to. Only rich people could afford this.

She was beginning to suspect, with mounting trepidation, that she didn’t get here because someone called 911. That suspicion only grew to a certainty when she demanded to be discharged, even offering to sign whatever waiver forms they put in front of her, only to be refused and given some sort of tranquilizer.

When she came to and demanded at least a phone to call her employer, Vanya had hoped to rely on the restaurant’s influence to get her out of this situation. The manager would definitely want her back to work as soon as possible. 

The restaurant may provide better benefits than even most legal establishments. But it came at the cost of the maximum devotion of time and energy. So surely, the manager would do something to get her out of this facility as soon as she could prove herself able to walk in a straight line.

But on the contrary, Vanya was emphatically told to stay put and focus on getting better. He also made clear that she could only start working once the facility had officially discharged and cleared her to work.

To her consternation, the doctor told her that it would take at least a month for Vanya to make a full recovery. When she tore her stitches during an ultimately fruitless escape attempt, the doctor lengthened her stay. And her usual nurse was replaced by a more formidable one, who may or may not have worked as an army medic before this job and had the build to intimidate anyone into compliance.

So for the first time in a long while, Vanya was left to her thoughts (when awake) and her dreams (when asleep). The facility provided her with a lot of activities and entertainment to distract her. But she refused it all in fear that it would simply be an added charge to an already mounting bill that someone else would pay for and would inevitably charge her.

Vanya had no proof. Mr Hargreeves didn’t even visit her. And none of the medical staff would reveal who took her there or paid for her expenses. But Vanya knew it was him. And it annoyed her to no end that she can’t even have a moment’s peace when her thoughts (and dreams) ultimately lead back to him.

In another life, she would have been grateful. She could have died if Mr Hargreeves hadn’t been stalking her (she figured he’d been doing it a while and was a master at it to have come at an opportune moment to save her). How long had he been following her as she made her way home (or the closest to a safe place she could have)? And why wasn’t she at all bothered by what was clearly predatory behaviour.

Then again, why didn’t he try anything? Vanya passed through dark streets and deserted corners. With the way the manager treated him and the way he easily dispatched the mugger, he could have done a number of things to her and erased the evidence. And had anyone even bothered to find out what happened to her and by some miracle outed Mr Hargreeves as the perpetrator, would the restaurant even really try to retaliate? The restaurant’s fear of him made it seem as if her employer would more likely help him do a better job at covering it up, just to keep up the facade that it protected its employees.

So what exactly did this man want from her?

She hated him for playing this ridiculous mind game with her. Just as much as she hated herself for liking it. Mr Hargreeves was far from a good man. And she would have preferred it if she got her thrills from catching the interest of a bad but powerful man. And while there was something inside her that reacted well to having something over someone so dangerous, there was the other side of her that gave her pause. 

Because it made her realise that shy, naive Vanya hadn’t been completely erased by time and a life of hardship and suffering. Even now, a part of her wanted to think of Mr Hargreeves as a good man all along. Or at the very least, a man who wanted to be a good man.

Vanya wanted to throw up for even thinking about it.

Mr Hargreeves was no better than every other person she had ever met. The only reason he hadn’t come to collect what she owed him was probably because he was waiting for a better moment. And like every other person who had ever done her a “favour,” he would demand that payment.

But the time for her discharge came and went just as quickly as her first week back to work. Mr Hargreeves again came at his usual hour. But never said another word more to her than what was required to express his usual order. 

He still left her his usual tip, which she would return on his next visit. When she went home, Vanya had to check her impulse to draw him out of the shadows. What he was doing made no sense. He would wait for her to get off work to follow her home. But do nothing to her along the way.

Had he just been making sure she got home safely? Well, except for that one time, Vanya could say he’d been doing a good job. If only she could believe that.

Perhaps another girl would have felt relieved at having something akin to a guardian. But with every day that passed without Mr. Hargreeves dictating his price, Vanya’s anxiety and trepidation just grew. 

She kept waiting for him to come to her. But after a month with no indication that her customer was going to approach her, Vanya started to think that his fascination for her was simply a product of her imagination.

But that just wasn’t possible. 

Vanya decided then that she had had enough. If he won’t come to her of his own accord, she would just force his hand.

So she started wearing her server’s blouse differently. Instead of being covered up from neck to wrist, she undid some of the buttons to show a bit more cleavage and allowed her sleeves to be shortened to her elbows. Instead of her usual pants, Vanya started wearing stockings with pencil skirts that ended right above her knees.

Her co-workers suggested that the ensemble would look much better with heels. But Vanya opted for flats instead. She really didn’t want to risk losing her balance and spilling a patron’s food all over the carpet or, worse yet, on a patron (though she had to admit that it would have been tempting to do so for some of the more obnoxious customers).

When Mr Hargreeves first saw her in her new ensemble, Vanya actually thought he would finally break his silence. It certainly had him stopping dead in his tracks. 

But to her disappointment, he managed to somehow regain control of himself. And business went on as usual. 

Of course, Vanya had accepted that as a possibility. She wasn’t deterred or thoroughly disheartened. So she started brushing his fingers “accidentally” when he handed his credit card, made sure he had a good view of her cleavage as she served his food, even made a bit of a show of dropping something just so he could get a good view of her skirt-covered backside.

Still, he hadn’t said anything to her.

That only egged her on. Because despite his seemingly stoic facade the whole week she started dressing and moving differently, Mr Hargreeves couldn’t fully keep up appearances. The sight of her cleavage had him spilling his wine all over the table. There was even one time another patron had openly flirted with Vanya. She didn’t know what Mr Hargreeves did when she had to go to the kitchen to fetch an order. But by the time she came back out, the patron was gone. And she detected a self-satisfied look on his face even as he tried to hide it behind a menu.

And yet, nothing from him to her. No message to meet somewhere, someplace. Not even a word to acknowledge what he had done for her. All he left at his table was the same tip she had given back to him earlier.

All her efforts in provoking him didn’t produce the result she wanted. She’d only done it for a week but she couldn’t bear to wear uncomfortable clothes and sway her hips for another week more. It was time for her last resort. 

So as she walked down a lonely alleyway in the earliest hours of the next day (as she usually did on her way home) and noticed that it was absolutely deserted, Vanya decided it was the best place to wait, emphasising it with arms crossed and her back leaning on a clean looking portion of the wall. If his conversations with his occasional companions were any indication, Vanya was confident he’d figure things out quickly.

She was there to wait for him. And Vanya wasn’t leaving this spot until they finally talked face to face and she could start settling her debts. While true that she hated having to pay something that she owed someone else, Vanya couldn’t stand the knowledge that someone had something over her, something they could use to control her. The earlier she could start repayment, the earlier the whole process of give and take could end.

By the time half an hour had passed with no sign of Mr Hargreeves, Vanya realized that her customer was a stubborn bastard as well as a stalker. Maybe she should simply call out to him. Maybe he simply didn’t understand what she was doing. 

And maybe pigs could actually fly.

Vanya knew that he figured it out as soon as she stopped walking. She always went straight back home after work. And she had never once chosen to linger anywhere. 

There was no point calling out to him. Sure, he could choose to respond and show himself. But he was just as likely to stay silent and keep himself hidden. 

Whether Vanya liked it or not, she was in a battle of wills with him. Whoever moves from their spot loses.

An hour later and Vanya was beginning to think that perhaps he had left. Or he had chosen not to follow her this day to begin with. But that didn’t make sense. He just spent an obscene amount of money just to keep her alive. He even paid a full medical staff to keep her in a facility to take care of her and ensure she recovered properly. At the very least, he would have viewed her as some sort of investment. Whatever he thought to gain from her, Vanya couldn’t imagine.

Well, that was a lie. Vanya had a good idea what he wanted. The only question is why he wanted it from her. Vanya pretended his answer wouldn’t matter. To even pose that query would imply she actually cared about him or what he thought.

She had waited months for this showdown. And if needed, she’d wait until the sun was high in the sky.

Thankfully, he finally decided to give up.

“What are you doing?” From his tone of voice, Mr Hargreeves was very annoyed. But whether it was because she tried his patience or because he was a sore loser, she wasn’t sure. 

Even at the restaurant, he held this presence that made people instinctively respect his personal space, even his occasional companions were careful to keep a healthy distance from him. But now, Vanya chose to ignore that. Maybe she was putting herself between the jaws of a predator by doing so. However, she had already gone far enough. And she didn’t believe in leaving things halfway done.

She knew he was a killer. He probably knew a hundred ways to end a person’s life. Probably knew how to block attacks.

But she was betting her life on the hope that he was neither prepared for nor was even expecting this one. She had no time to enjoy that momentary flash of befuddlement on his face when she made her move. So while holding onto fistfuls of his crisp white shirt, Vanya pulled him down enough for her to reach his face and press her lips onto his.

He was much stronger than her and could probably dislodge her any time. But with the exception of a quick second of stillness, he started kissing her back. 

There was no more time for words then. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of her. She prepared herself to be bent over, hands on the wall as he lifted her skirt and removed (or better yet, tore off) her panties. If not, she was also ready for him to hook a leg around his waist.

But he remained focused on her mouth, a hand on her cheek while the other went through her hair. He was taking his time with her. Being gentle with her.

She told herself to remember that this was simply payment. And it would last until he got tired of her, which wouldn’t be too long. It just couldn’t.

But when her hands made their way to his belt, in an obvious bid to unfasten it, his mouth moved away from hers at the same time his hands caught hers. And they spent several seconds simply staring at each other as they took big gulps of air to catch their collective breaths.

Finally, it was he who broke the silence.

“We can’t do this.”

“What? No!” Vanya was shocked at the disappointment in her voice. Did she actually enjoy kissing him? And positively excited at the thought of doing more?

“I mean, we can’t do this here. And not now. But I would like it very much if you have lunch with me whenever you’re free.”

Was he actually asking her out? No, she can’t be his girlfriend. There was absolutely no room in her life for another romantic entanglement. Besides, they would never work out. He was fully entrenched in a world of shady backroom dealings and occasional (or so she hoped) literal backstabbings. And she wanted nothing more than to be left alone in a quiet place somewhere away from here. 

Months ago, she had witnessed him kill a man with his bare hands, which meant that he could easily do that to her. But he didn’t. 

That was when realization struck her.

Mr Hargreeves was no fool. But he was only a man after all. He must be lonely. But his own damn pride won’t let him admit it. He wanted a believable fantasy of companionship. That was why he never approached her. And why he only made a move after she did.

He didn’t actually want a girlfriend. But he wanted the experience of having one. Or as close to it as he could get.

Vanya would have normally refused. It was too close for comfort. Then again, she wasn’t in a position to say no. She owed him a lot of money. And if paying it off in the form of sex and companionship was what was needed, she would do it. It wasn’t the most unpleasant thing she’d had to do in her life. 

“Yes! Let’s have lunch tomorrow.”

It was the first time she’d seen a genuine smile across his face. And she wondered what would have happened if she had met him earlier.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at noon. Is that all right?”

“That’s fine.”

And with that, Vanya had a date the very next day. He escorted her to her door and made to leave as soon as she got inside. She should have left it at that. 

But she decided to act foolishly and indulge her curiosity.

“What does the F stand for?”

“What?”

“Your credit card. It says F. Hargreeves. What does F stand for?”

“Five.”

Apparently, it really was his legal name. Which was certainly weird to say the least. She would start calling him Five tomorrow. Though she’d only do so when they were alone together.

One day, she’d ask him how he got the name. But for tonight, he would no longer be Mr Hargreeves in her thoughts or in her dreams.

Lunch went pleasantly enough. She found out that he only took his coffee without milk or sweeteners. And that he didn’t particularly mind that she was basically invading his personal space by sitting so close to him.

Vanya only remembered that the date was part of her payment when she was back at the restaurant hours after having lunch with him. 

And to that, she could only say one thing.

“Shit!”


End file.
